As Many As I Love

Woe is me, because I am a person of unclean lips: and I live among a people of unclean lips.

Nobody can tame the tongue. It is very little, but it boasts great things. Like a tiny spark it can set a very large and roaring fire. The tongue can pretend to bless God while all the while cursing man who is made in God’s image. Can good and evil come out of the same mouth? Does sweet and sour water come out of the same well? Do apple trees sometimes yield thorns? NO! If a well is good it yields sweet water. If poison water sometimes comes out, it is a dangerous well, not fit for use.

“Wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.”

If we find ourselves yielding sour words sometimes, we have proved that the well needs cleansing. A new conversion is needed. A daily conversion. Like our sweaty bodies, our mind need to be washed, daily. We are sinners. (Should I just say “I am a sinner”, and speak for myself only?). I am a sinner in need of a daily change. Moment by moment, hour by hour. I have not attained, I’m not perfected.

In Alcoholics Anonymous, they have a saying that if you have a chance to be an alcoholic, GRAB IT! What they mean is that it is such a relief to finally know and admit that you have a problem, and you need help from a POWER outside of yourself Martin Luther sometimes fell into despondency. “Oh my sin! My sin! My sin!” he cried, one day.

“Well! Would you only be a sinner in appearance, and have also a SAVIOUR only in appearance?” “Know that JESUS CHRIST is the Saviour even of those who are real, great sinners, and deserving of UTTER CONDEMNATION.”

“O blessed fault that has merited such a REDEEMER!”

None of the disciples were perfect when JESUS chose them. He chose them in spite of their weaknesses and defects. Even John, the one who most fully reflected the SAVIOUR’S LOVE, had many faults. He was ambitious, resentful, critical. He and his brother were called “the sons of thunder.”

But day by day he yielded his violent spirit to the patient, forbearing example of his BELOVED SAVIOUR. He had faults but his Saviour’s love for him won his heart.

JESUS reproved His disciples, but they did not leave Him. They began to realize that in comparison with HIM their characters were very rough and needed much refining.

So, as we come together in church relationship, we shall often be disappointed because we do not find perfection in each other. But as the early disciples said when Christ asked them, “Will you also go away?” They replied, “To whom would we go?”

This world is full of darkness, and cold. Error teems everywhere. Disease and death are the fruits. WE MUST PRESS TOGETHER AND PRESENT A UNITED FRONT TO THE ENEMY IN SPITE OF OUR MINOR DIFFERENCES. We have no time to quarrel when such a situation surrounds and confronts us.

If I become rashly critical, remind me, gently or otherwise, that I am only a member and not the HEAD of this body.
HALLELUJAH! We’re headed home! It might take a while. We have pitfalls, snares and devils and… all along the steep climb: but we also have a DELIVERER, a COMFORTER, sweet wine to refresh us, bread to strengthen us…
And best of all, we are AUTHORIZED to take other sinners (cleansed) into the kingdom with us. That is why time continues; GOD is not willing that any should perish, but that all of us should come to repentance, DAILY.

God takes us as we are, with all the human elements in our characters, and will train us for HIS SERVICE, if we will be disciplined, and learn of HIM. We are not chosen because we are perfect; but in spite of our faults and weaknesses. HE sees in us precious qualities which He desires to develop. He is willing to take time to mold and fashion us, and take us from one fire to another in order to burn away the dross.

I mourn because my roughest edges seem to always come in contact with my best friends.

O for the time when the LORD will say to the angel, “Take away the filthy garments from him.”
AMEN.

Kathleen Ross, Alberta, Canada